


Housecall

by Mike_Smith



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 04:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mike_Smith/pseuds/Mike_Smith
Summary: Dr. Reyes hosts an unexpected guest at her practice.





	Housecall

**Author's Note:**

> 「CRAZY NIGHT」: This story features the X-Men, which is a trademark of Marvel Comics. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.
> 
> 「CRY FOR THE MOON」: This story is set some time between X-Men v.2 #84 and Uncanny X-Men v.1 #364.

Cecelia Reyes had closed her office three hours ago, but the security system was telling her there was someone inside. With a resigned shrug, she rolled out of bed and headed downstairs to see who it was.

The intrusion didn't bother her much. She was no ordinary doctor, despite her efforts to appear that way. Cecelia Reyes was a mutant, which meant that her genetic structure was just different enough to give her a special ability. She had tried to keep that power a secret, but when her true nature was exposed, she was forced to seek refuge with the X-Men, a team of mutant heroes devoted to opposing anti-mutant prejudice. The superhero life wasn't for her, but she still sympathized with the X-Men's cause, and so she started a practice in Salem Center, not far from the estate that served as their headquarters. It wasn't uncommon at all for one of them to drop by after hours. Sometimes they just wanted to visit, or they needed her medical expertise, or they wanted to drop off some bizarre piece of superhero equipment for her to hide. There was really no way to know. She had learned to expect the unexpected.

"Let me guess," she said as she swung open the door to her examination room. "You went one too many rounds in the Danger Room and sprained--"

She gasped when she saw who it was. A young woman--possibly nineteen, though no one knew for certain--with ruddy skin, short pink hair and a muscular build. What truly set her apart, though, were the bony protrusions sticking out of her face, arms, and back. She turned her head to look at Cecelia and flashed a wicked smile.

"Evening, healer," Marrow said. "Long time, no see."

* * *

 

Marrow was a Morlock, one of a tribe of mutants who lived underneath New York City to avoid the human population. Cecelia had heard a few details about Marrow's past, but much of it was confusing and contradictory. Depending on whom you asked, the Morlocks lived in subway tunnels, sewers, or fallout shelters. They were also supposed to have been killed at least three times, although in one of these instances they were actually teleported to another dimension. Marrow had once led a terrorist cell of Morlocks called Gene Nation, until the X-Men defeated her. Supposedly, it was Storm, the X-Men's leader, who had killed Marrow in battle, but that hardly explained how she was sitting in Cecelia's office, eyeing the skeleton display in the corner of the room.

All Cecellia knew for herself was that she and Marrow had joined the X-Men at the same time, and for essentially the same reasons: they each had nowhere else to go. During their brief time as "teammates", they helped the X-Men against such menaces as Pilgrimm and the Shadow King, but they never got to know each other well. Cecelia knew Marrow's real name was "Sarah", and that her mutant bone growths were as painful and uncontrollable as they looked.

Joining the X-Men had been a wake-up call for Cecelia. Her own power was a force field which automatically protected her from injury. She couldn't turn it on or off, but as long as there was no immediate danger to her person, Cecelia could keep her mutation a secret and live among normal humans.  Her deception had failed, but at least it had worked long enough to get her through med school. Many mutants like Sarah, never got that chance. They were branded as freaks at an early age, and their only hope was to band together into groups. The X-Men forced Cecelia to see mutant issues as something beyond her own personal problem. It was bigger than just one young doctor with a force field. Meeting other mutants like Sarah had given Cecelia a sense of perspective.

But it didn't explain why she was here.

"Something wrong, healer?" Sarah asked as she took the skeleton's hand and held it in her own. She began to stroke its radius and ulna with her fingers, as if caressing it like a lover.

"You... you've  never come over before, that's all," Cecelia said. "I thought you might be one of the other X-Men, maybe with an emergency."

"Nope. Sorry to worry you."

"No it's okay. I'm actually kind of... Did you just apologize for something?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, I guess you really have changed," Cecilia said.

"Life is change, healer," Sarah said. "I really didn't mean to surprise you." She pointed at one of the lengths of bone on her back. "I didn't think dropping by during the day would be a good idea.   For either of us."

"I understand," Cecelia said. "But you never asked for medical help before. From what I can tell you heal almost as quickly as Logan."

"Relax, doc," Sarah said. "It's just a social call. Thought I'd be friendly like all the respectable X-Men."

Cecelia didn't quite believe that, but she saw no use in disputing her word.  "Okay. Well, yeah. It's good to see you again. I was starting to think they had you walled up in the mansion."

"They keep me pretty busy," Sarah said.

"How do you like it?"

"I don't."

Cecelia didn't respond to that right away. The X-Men roster was constantly shifting an changing. When Cecelia and Sarah joined, much of the team was missing in action, only to return a short time later. Several of them left, either due to injuries or to deal with personal issues. Eventually, four veteran X-Men rejoined the team. Storm had seemed pleased with this development, not just because it reunited her with old friends, but because it lent some much-needed stability to the team. Then they recovered Charles Xavier, the X-Men's founder, who had been in captivity for months. For most of the X-Men, things were finally getting back to normal, although Cecelia and Marrow had no idea what "normal" was supposed to be.

"I can't say I blame you," she finally said. "I know _I_ couldn't get out fast enough."

"Yeah, but when you want off the team, you can just quit.   Me, I don't have a lot of other options," Sarah said. "Unless you could use a really creepy looking orderly."

"Sorry," Cecelia said.

"I missed you," Sarah said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. It hasn't been the same since you and Maggott left, and those other guys showed up."

"Life is change," Cecilia said. "You know, Japheth drops by once in a while. If I see him again, I'll give you a call."

"Don't go out of your way, healer," Sarah said. "I mean, it's not like the three of us were buddies or anything."

"It wasn't _that_ bad," Cecelia said. "Then again, sometimes I think pre-med wasn't so bad. I almost catch myself missing the all-nighters. Nostalgia's a terrible liar."

"I... I don't know if I can cut it," Sarah said. Her voice was cracking, and she released the skeleton's arm to clutch at a cluster of bones sprouting from her opposite shoulder.

"What are you talking about?" Cecelia asked. "They're not going to kick you out, are they?"

"No," Sarah said. "If they wanted to fire me they would have done that already. Besides, I got nowhere else to go. Wouldn't look good for their warm and fuzzy mission statement to send me out into the cold, cruel world. What would that say about their pretty-pretty _dream_? No, they'll just keep me on board until I get killed."

"Why would you think that?" Cecelia asked.

"Because they're _insane_ ," Sarah said, her eyes widening with terror as she looked at her.   Most of the defiant bravado in her face and posture had drained away, leaving just a frightened young woman that Sarah tried her best to hide.    "It took me a while to realize it, but every mission is more and more dangerous, _and they get nothing out of it_. At all!"

"Funny. I thought you liked that kind of mayhem, Sarah," Cecelia said.

"It's hilarious actually," Sarah replied. "I thought I liked it too."

Cecelia was about to make some witty comeback to that, but she noticed something Sarah's lower lip quivering slightly. She had wanted to know why Marrow had come here, but the answer was obvious now, wasn't it? Like Sarah said, she had nowhere else to go.

"I'm going to make some coffee," Cecelia said. "You want some?"

* * *

 

Twenty minutes later, they were in the waiting room. Marrow was perched on the edge of one of the seats, cradling her Styrofoam cup in her hands. Cecelia almost asked her to sit down like a regular person, until she remembered that this wouldn't be possible, since the long bones sticking out of Sarah's back would make it impossible for her to lean back in her chair.

"Okay, so I know that business with Cerebro was pretty hairy, but I hadn't heard all the details," Cecelia said. "They brought in Peter for a physical, just to make sure he was all right, and the little girl, Nina, but what happened to you?"

"I wasn't hurt, if that's what you mean," Sarah muttered. "By the First One, is that all you ever think about? People getting hurt all the time, so you can stitch them back together? We're not as fragile as you think, even without a force field to protect us."

Cecelia ignored the deflection. She had learned to do this in her first year of residency. Patients always lied, even when they didn't know they were doing it. No one wanted to be hurt, or frightened, or sick. Oftentimes, they took these frustrations out at the very people trying to help them. The trick was not to take it personally, and to see this as another symptom, no different from bleeding or swelling. "So what's the problem?" she asked. "You didn't come here to remind me how tough you are, and they have better coffee at the X-Mansion."

"No, they don't," Sarah said as she sipped from her cup. She sniffed at it and grinned as she shut her eyes tightly. "This stuff's good. I should drop by more often."

"I got it from an ALDI store, Sarah," Cecelia said. "Bargain basement stuff.   I think it's just coal dust with caffeine sprinkled in."

"It's _good_ ," Sarah said. "When I was a kid, there was this Morlock who could brew coffee with his powers. He would dig up old grounds out of the trash. Never forget the smell."

Cecelia looked down at her own cup as though seeing it for the first time. "What happened in San Francisco, Sarah?" Cecelia asked.

"Before that," Sarah said. "Nebraska."

"I remember," Cecelia said. "You were all busy fighting Pyro in flyover country, so the delivery guys came here instead, so I could sign off on all that hardware that came in from Scotland." She pointed at an empty space on the floor as if the crate were still sitting there. "What happened?"

"I was mouthing off to Storm about something, and Rogue made a crack about me leading the team someday," Sarah said.

"Right," Cecelia said. "And then?"

"That's all," Sarah said. "We caught Pyro and turned him over to those S.H.I.E.L.D. clowns and came back home."

"I don't get it," Cecelia said. "Look, you know Rogue was kidding, right? You've been up in Storm's business since you joined, and the others respect her. Figures they'd give it back to you."

It irritated Cecelia to refer to the others by their codenames, but no one seemed to know Rogue's real name, and she had trouble remembering Storm's.   So many others just called her "Storm" anyway, that it seemed almost simpler to do the same.  

"I'm not stupid, all right?" Sarah said. "Of course she was kidding. Only... she kind of _wasn't_ , y'know? The way she said it, it was like they all knew I'd end up running things eventually, and she was reminding me of it."

"I think you're reading too much into it," Cecelia said.

"Am I? It wasn't that long ago when I was one of their _enemies_. I only joined the X-Men because Callisto told me to, and they only let me stick around because they were shorthanded. But now... I'm _fitting in._ I don't even _mind_ that I'm fitting in. One of these days I really might be in charge."

"Look, if you don't want to be the leader, just say so," Cecelia said. "I mean, wait until they offer you the job, or it'll sound weird. I just mean they can't _force_ you to take command."

"That's not the point!" Sarah said. "Before, they didn't even like the idea of me living in their basement. Now they joke about grooming me for leadership."

"They're starting to trust you, that's all," Cecelia said.

" _They're overestimating me_!" Sarah insisted. She winced for a moment, and before Cecelia moved to get up from her seat, Sarah gripped a chunk of bone jutting out from her left flank. With a grunt, she pulled it loose with her right hand, and took a deep breath as she examined it.

"Useless," Sarah said. "The ones branching off my ribs are never big enough to use as weapons. I guess Colossus or Gambit could throw it at somebody and do some damage."

"Are you okay?" Cecelia asked reflexively. She had seen Sarah do this before, but familiarity didn't make it any more pleasant to see.

" _Dandy_ ," Sarah said. She dropped the fragment on the end table next to her chair. "Present for you, doc. Make a nice paperweight for your office."

"I don't think so," Cecelia said.

"Throw it away if you want," Sarah said. She pointed at the bony ridge on her forehead. "Plenty more where that came from."

"No, I mean I don't buy this bull that they're overestimating you," Cecelia said. "They're too sharp for that. You helped them bring back Professor Xavier, right?"

"I barely had anything to _do_ with that--"

"Not my point," Cecelia said. "He's back, and he knows you're on the team and living in his house, doesn't he? What does he think?"

Sarah shook her head. "Baldy thinks I show ' _tremendous potential'._ "

Cecelia chuckled. "Very political. I think that's what he told me when he tried to recruit me a few years ago."

"He's part of the problem!" Sarah said. "The X-Men treat him like a saint! They think he can do no wrong, even after all that Onslaught crap! And then I meet the guy and he's just a _man!_ He's no better than the Windrider, or her precious Goddess. Reputation doesn't mean _jack_ where I come from. It's all about what you can _do_ , because if you can't do it, you're dead."

While Cecelia disliked the X-Men's use of codenames, Marrow seemed to take the idea to a whole other level, assigning nicknames to almost everyone she knew.   She called Cecelia 'healer', Storm 'Windrider', and now apparently Charles Xavier had been christened 'Baldy'.   Maybe it was a Morlock custom, or some way for Sarah to keep a certain distance from those around her. 

"Is that what you're worried about, Sarah?" Cecelia asked. "You're afraid they'll put too much faith in you and you'll let them all down?"

"I'm worried," Sarah said slowly, "that if I stick with these guys long enough, that I'll start thinking like them, and put too much faith in _myself_. Colossus drew this cool picture of me. If you come by the mansion I'll show it to you. It... well, it looks like me, but it looks really _good_ too. I don't know how he did that, but I like trying to figure it out. I sort of wonder if that's what he sees when he looks at me. He doesn't see _me_ , but like, a _better_ me."

She put her hand over her eyes and smelled her coffee. "I just don't want to get lost pretending I'm whatever they see in me. I don't want to fail because I thought I was more than I am. But they keep _pushing me to do better_ , to take bigger risks and help people that don't even like us, and I'm not even sure how I made it this far. Sooner or later it'll catch up with me, and I don't want anyone else to suffer when that happens."

"I didn't know Colossus was an artist," Cecelia said.

"Yeah, he's really good."

"Well, maybe his sketches are more realistic than you're giving him credit for," Cecelia said. "Maybe whatever he sees in you--what the others see in you--is the truth."

"Get real" Sarah said. "You know how optimistic the X-Men are."

"Yeah, but they're no dummies either," she replied. "You ever heard of impostor syndrome?" The look on Sarah's face was answer enough, so Cecelia continued. "I busted my butt to become a doctor, but once I'd made it, it didn't quite feel _real_ , like I had somehow fooled everyone into thinking I had earned it. Everyone thinks doctors are super smart, so if you don't feel super smart, you don't feel like a doctor, even if you have the credentials."

"But you _are_ a doctor," Sarah said. "You cut that bomb out of Cyclops your first day at the mansion, and you didn't even have any equipment."

"I had a lot of help that day," Cecelia said. "Including those bones you gave me to use as retractors. Now _those_ bone I kept. They're still in my office."

"I... I only gave you those to mess with Storm's head," Sarah said. "She thought I'd cause trouble, so I decided to help out just to confuse her.   You would have gotten that bomb removed some other way."

"No, I wouldn't," Cecelia said. "Logan's claws were too sharp; they would have cut the surrounding tissue instead of moving it aside. You only see your contribution as less important because it was _yours_. That's how impostor syndrome works."

Sarah appeared to consider this for a moment. "How'd you get over it, then?" she asked.

"I swore an oath," Cecelia said. "I have to act like a doctor, even when I don't feel like one. Eventually I helped enough people that I started to believe my own medical license. I'm not saying you have to lead the X-Men, Sarah, but I think you might have to do it for a while before you'll ever convince yourself that you can. Dreams can be more practical than you think."

"Well... maybe you've got something there," Sarah said. "But I still don't think I'm leader material. I mean come on. Would you follow orders from someone like me?"

Cecilia took a long drink of her coffee before answering. "You know what? I probably would."

Sarah was stunned. "Wait, you-- You're kidding, right? That classic healer sarcasm."

"No, I'm serious."

"Then you must be out of your mind, healer. We didn't exactly get along when you were on the team."

"Yeah, well, that was a while ago, and I've had time to think back on it," Cecelia said. "If you want to know the truth, I... I think I owe you an apology."

"For what?" Sarah asked. "I don't remember you really giving me any grief, and even if you did, I definitely deserved it."

"Look, I don't know how much you know about the 'upworld' or whatever you call it," Cecilia said. She held up her left hand and started counting off her fingers as she spoke. "I'm black, Sarah. I'm Puerto Rican. I'm a woman. In normal human society, any _one_ of those three things can put you at a disadvantage, and I'm all three."

"The humans discriminate in all sorts of ways," Sarah said. "That's nothing new to me."

"My force field activated for the first time when I was thirteen. I'd already made up my mind to become a doctor, and I knew it'd be an uphill battle _without_ being a mutant. Fortunately, my mutant power was pretty easy to hide. The field's almost invisible, and it only turned on to protect me from serious injury. Charles Xavier was the only person who ever discovered my secret, and he needed that million-dollar mutant detection machine of his to find out. If those Prime Sentinels hadn't come after me, I'd probably still be doing rounds at Our Mother of Mercy today."

"I used to give you a lot of crap for that, healer," Sarah said. "I thought you were a coward for trying to blend in with the flatsc-- I mean, normal humans."

"You were right," Cecilia said. "I mean, you were a jerk about it, sure, but it only struck a nerve because I knew it was true. I was afraid that if people knew I was a mutant, it would ruin my life, and so I did everything I could to hide it. Meanwhile, _you_... _Dios mio_ , Sarah, you had to live in the sewers all your life."

"They were abandoned subway tunnels," Sarah said, looking somewhat offended.

"You scared the hell out of me, and not just because of the way you looked back then. You _couldn't_ hide your power. People could tell you were a mutant from a mile away. You'd been living my worst fear your whole life, and worst of all, you were _proud_ of it."

"You never seemed too scared of me, healer," Sarah said. "I kinda respected that about you. Still do."

"Don't get me wrong. I wasn't afraid to push back if you got in my face. I'd dealt with punks like you all my life," Cecelia said.

"You challenging me, doc?" Sarah asked.

"No, I'm just... what frightened me was that you were so... well, 'comfortable' might not be the right word. I know those bony protrusions cause you constant pain, Sarah. But you took it in stride. Even when you defied the X-Men, you still respected us as fellow mutants. I realized that I'd have to be more like you to survive now that my secret was out."

"S'funny," Sarah said. "I used to think the same thing about you. The Windrider made a lousy role model. Too perfect and pristine, perched on her clouds. You and Maggott were more down to earth."

"Well, I'm glad I could help," Cecelia said. "You had a really rough time back then, and I had no idea what to do for you."

"You kept your distance, healer," Sarah said. "That's what I needed then. Sure, you would have stepped up if I really needed it, but you knew when to back off." She sipped her coffee and made a long, low sigh. "Keeping everyone at arm's length. Some leader I'd be."

"Yeah, well, I sort of admired you, in a weird way," Cecilia said.

"Admired?" Sarah said.

"Look, I thought _I_ was pretty headstrong. I guess in a way we're sort of alike. Except if you had my mutant power, you'd probably be making better use of it than I do, and if I had your bony growths, I'd probably curl up in a ball and scream for the rest of my life. You're tough, Marrow. As tough as Storm or Wolverine or any of the others. Maybe tougher."

"Thanks, but they keep telling me that it's not just about strength," Sarah said.

"You ever talk to Wolverine much?" Cecelia asked. "Logan. I meant Logan. Dammit, they've got me using their codenames."

"Not much. I mean, I guess we get along well enough," Sarah said. "The two of us aren't exactly chatty to begin with, healer, and that was before I stabbed him in the throat--"

"Well, he drops by once in a while for coffee," Cecelia said. "Once I figured out this 'X-Men chapter' of my life wasn't going to end anytime soon, I got to know them. Helps my bedside manner."

"Your what?" Sarah asked.

"Doctor talk," Cecelia replied. "Don't ask me how, but I got him talking about that fight you two had in the basement that day. He thought he was trying to straighten you out, but he got sloppy. That's his version, anyway."

"I won't argue with that," Sarah said. "I was kinda sloppy myself that day."

"Well, he told me it was a real wake-up call. He'd been worried about losing his edge, if you can imagine that, and I guess you convinced him he needed to... well, whatever a guy like him does to stay sharp. You probably know more about that than me."

"Not really," Sarah said.

"I guess what I'm saying is that there's more than one way to make an impression on people," Cecelia said. "Without really trying, you gave a lot of us a reason to take a hard look at ourselves. That sounds like something a leader might want to do."

"I don't know, healer," Sarah said. "That sounds like a reach to me."

"Put it like this," Cecelia said. "The only way they'd put you in charge of the X-Men _today_ is if most of the big guns dropped dead. I figure we'd be down to about four mutants. You, me, Maggott, and maybe that girl from Beverly Hills who shoots fireworks."

"Jubilee," Sarah said.

"If things ever get _that_ bad, then we must really be in a fight for our lives, and I'd trust you to get us through it in one piece," Cecelia said. "How's that?"

Sarah downed the rest of her cup and shook her head. "I think you're just feeding me a line, healer. You're like the other X-Men, trying to convince me I've got all this hidden potential."

"Drat," Cecelia said. "You've seen through my evil plan. I guess when the chips are down, we'll have to put Japheth in charge. I just hope we can make sense of anything he says."

Sarah chuckled. "You really expect me to believe some pretty-pretty upworlder doctor could ever look up to a Morlock like me?"

"It took me a while to buy into it myself," Cecelia said, "so I don't blame you for being skeptical."

"I'm... I'm honored, healer," Sarah said. "Even if you didn't mean it... well, it means a lot coming from you."

"I mean it, okay?" Cecelia said. "Take the compliment already."

Sarah didn't have a comeback to that one, and so she changed the subject instead. "Do you really have my bones in your desk?" she asked.

Cecelia nodded. "I keep a collection of unusual things I've had to use in a pinch," she said. "Super glue, safety pins, duct tape, you'd be surprised what you can come up with when things are desperate. Your bones are my favorite piece, but not necessarily the strangest..."

"Show me," Sarah said, rising up from her seat. "Just a peek, anyway. I don't want to take up too much of your time."

"Don't worry about it," Cecelia said. "I don't get a lot of chances to show this stuff off. And you might as well have another cup of coffee while you're here..."

** ⊗ **

 


End file.
